Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam (born Moritz Amsterdam, December 14, 1908, Chicago, Illinois, USA – October 28, 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA) was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966. During the 1930s, Amsterdam was a regular on The Al Pearce Show radio program, and by 1937 was the master of ceremonies on The Night Club of the Air. Amsterdam also had a notable career as a songwriter, with his first popular success being "Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming." Amsterdam's most famous achievement as a songwriter was as the credited lyricist on the 1945 Andrews Sisters hit "Rum and Coca-Cola". However, the original version of the song was written and performed by a Trinidadian calypso singer named Lord Invader, and Amsterdam was subsequently involved in a copyright suit over the song, which dragged on until 1948. In the end, Lord Invader was given a substantial royalty payment for having written the original lyric to the piece, while Amsterdam retained the credit (and the publishing rights) for his revised version of the lyric. The Morey Amsterdam Show ran on CBS TV from December 1948 to March 1949 and on DuMont from April 1949 to October 1950. Among Morey's regular guests was song-and-dance man Art Carneyneeded. The cigarette girl was future author Jacqueline Susann, wife of the producer of the show, Irving Mansfieldneeded. Jazz musician Johnny Guarneri led the band. In 1950, he briefly hosted the comedy-variety show Broadway Open House, TV's first late-night entertainment show, on NBC. One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show. The show was originally to be hosted by comic Don "Creesh" Hornsby (so named because he yelled "Creesh" often), but he died of polio two weeks before the premiere broadcast. Hornsby's replacements, hosting different nights each week, were Amsterdam (Monday and Wednesday) and the raucous Jerry Lester (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays), the brother of character actor Buddy Lester. Amsterdam soon exited the show, leaving Lester the sole host. His best-known role was as comedy writer Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a role suggested for him by his friend Rose Marie, who also appeared on the show. Amsterdam wrote lyrics for the show's theme song, which were never heard on the air, but have been performed by Dick Van Dyke in concert. Van Dyke sang those lyrics on the October 23, 2010 edition of the NPR show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. In 1958, Morey appeared in the low-budget film Machine-Gun Kelly with Charles Bronson, and he did a notable dramatic turn in the 1960 noir classic Murder, Inc. as Catskill nightclub owner Walter Sage, the first victim (according to the film) of the newly minted Murder, Incorporated. Amsterdam played Cappy, owner of the local nightclub, in the Beach Party movies of the 1960s, which were produced by American International Pictures, of which he was a part-owner.needed He and Rose Marie also co-starred in the 1966 film, Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, a comedy co-written and co-produced by Amsterdam. The film features Richard Deacon, their co-star on The Dick Van Dyke Show, with cameos by the show's co-producer Danny Thomas and co-star Carl Reiner. His later roles included appearances in The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). Category:Actors from USA